No to nuclear tests and military exercises, yes to peace and disarmament on the Korean Peninsula

South Korean Battle Tank drives off a U.S. Navy Landing Craft Air Cushion in a joint military exercise in 2004
(Image by US Air Force)

On the 2nd of September, the joint South Korean-US military exercises known as “Ulchi-Freedom Guardian”, in which more than 50 thousand Korean and 25 thousand US soldiers took part to “review joint defence strategies”, came to an end.

The USA has 28,000 military personnel permanently stationed on South Korean territory. This kind of exercise is carried out annually and constitutes a clear provocation to the government of North Korea.

On the 10th of September, North Korea carried out its fifth nuclear test, but North Korea isn’t the threat to humanity. On the other hand, US imperialism definitely is, with its blind eagerness for power which is taking our civilisation to the brink of a nuclear catastrophe, putting at risk our very existence as a species.

The North Korean government must be condemned for the development of its nuclear programme, but the greater context for this situation is that South Korea and the USA refuse to sign a peace agreement, despite the North offering to end its nuclear programme in exchange for an end to military exercises and the achievement of a peace agreement.

It is curious to observe how the Western, pro-NATO media cover the story, casting the North Koreans in the role of the menace when it is this enormous bilateral military deployment which is generating risks and danger.

The International Humanist Party calls on people to not fall into naivety and believe that a small country such as North Korea is putting humanity in danger.

It is the financial-military-industrial-media-political complex of NATO and the USA at its head which is the real danger. Our party proposes progressive and proportional conventional and nuclear disarmament, while denouncing today’s tired formal democracies and the violence of military dictatorships. We need to evolve towards real democracies in which the people wield power: the only guarantee of real peace.